On Autumn, Anxiety, and the World

I have my hands full of love-in-a-puff seed pods. They’re magical little lanterns, once green and now brown, filled with three or four seeds with tiny white hearts on them. I can only assume that’s why they’re called love-in-a-puff. It doesn’t really matter right now, as I’m creating the first path of the day through the morning dew from the garden. The sun isn’t yet above the tree line. Its golden rays are hitting the leaves just right. Yellow, red, rust, auburn. They’re all chattering a bit in the branches above me. The chickens are skittering around in the garden, freshly fed, a new morning, no agenda but to eat and lay. A large, lumbering flatbed semi-truck barrels by with crates and crates nearly overflowing with orange pumpkins. Headed to the city, I’m sure. To the grocery stores, the pop-up pumpkin patches, the markets that supply the front porch and jack o'lantern decor. A wedge of geese fly overhead, the typical V-formation is a gray silhouette against the early morning sky. They’re honking their way directly...southwest. Yes. That’s the way, I mumble to myself.

I know the world feels like it’s in upheaval right now. I know, in both private and public ways, how we all feel sideways, waiting for the waves to set us back upright again. I feel this as I walk toward the house, whispering to myself as the day begins.

It’s the dishes, that’s what I initially thought. If I can stay on top of washing all of the dishes, wistfully hoping that one day we’ll have a dishwasher, then maybe I’ll feel better.

But then it was the laundry. Every day, new load in, out, folded, away. 
No it was the meal planning. Now three full meals for everyone, every day of the week.
It was the garden. Once fall comes, it will slow down, I thought.
No the dog hair that seems to reappear in the corners by the hour.
The e-mails.
The text messages.
The zoom calls.
Not enough sleep.
The budget.
The lack of childcare.
My husband’s increased workload.
The barn that needs repair.
The car that broke down.
The school curriculum.
Homeschooling.
The new schedule.
The overwhelming sense of personal failure.
The friend’s marriage falling apart.
The bad news.
The friends who we don’t see anymore. 
The bad prognosis.
The friends who are no longer with us. 
Election season.
Covid spikes and warnings.
Red zones.
Racial tensions.
News headlines.
Social media.

It’s all of it. 

And so this morning, like every morning lately, on the short walk to and from the chicken house, with the morning dew and early sun, I throw my heart into the arms of Christ. 

It’s you. That’s it.

This is what I repeat at night when the sun sets, the children settle into bed, the darkness lays onto the ground. Into the arms of Christ I send my heart running. You’re it. I have all my eggs in this basket. I’m banking on you. To whom else shall we go? What else do we have? What other hope can we anchor ourselves to? Nothing, no one. I have no back-up plan. No other answers. No better arguments. I don’t know enough to know how to wax poetic about politics, policies, or all that’s happening in our world.

The older I get, the more I realize that all of life passes like sand through my hands. I am seeing more and more that just getting to Heaven isn’t the goal; knowing and beholding Christ is. Only Jesus, who spoke Creation into order, who gave life to light and who laid down in the darkness, only to rise again, is unchanging, unshifting. He brings no wringing hands, no anxiety, no questions. Only Jesus, that’s it. I think these are the words that will be my repetitious anthem throughout the rest of my life. As I realize the question in John 6:68 “Lord, to whom shall we go?” isn’t said in sarcasm but in resolute desperation. Lord, we have nowhere else.

So I’m watching the geese, watching the world pass, watching the sand trickle through my hands. I’m doing no extraordinary things and I only know the prayers that bring my heavy feet, one foot in front of the other, to and from the house each morning. I have my hands full of love-in-a-puff seed pods. Small seeds marked with love, in the grip of the gardener, heading into winter in capable hands.